“Good. I need an hour or so myself.” For what, he did not say. “Stay close to Elayne, Mat. Keep her safe. I mean, there’s no point to this if she doesn’t reach Caemlyn alive for her coronation.” Did Rand think he did not know about him and Elayne canoodling in every corner of the Stone the last time they were together?
“I’ll treat her like my own sister.” His sisters had done their best to make his life miserable. Well, he expected the same from Elayne, just in a different way. Maybe Aviendha would be a little better. “She won’t get out of my sight until I plunk her down in the Royal Palace.” And if she tries Mistress Snoot on with me too often, I’ll bloody well kick her!
Rand nodded. “That reminds me. Bodewhin is in Caemlyn. With Verin and Alanna, and some more Two Rivers girls. They’re on their way to train for Aes Sedai. I’m not sure where they will do it; I am certainly not letting them go to the Tower the way things are. Maybe the Aes Sedai you bring back will take care of it.”
Mat gaped. His sister, Aes Sedai? Bode, who used to run tell their mother every time he did anything that was fun?
“Another thing,” Rand went on. “Egwene may be in Salidar before you. I think somehow they found out she’s been calling herself Aes Sedai. Do what you can to get her out of it. Tell her I will get her back to the Wise Ones as soon as I can. She’ll probably be more than ready to go with you. Maybe not, though; you know how stubborn she’s always been. The main thing is Elayne. Remember, don’t leave her side till she reaches Caemlyn.”
“I promise,” Mat muttered. How under the Light could Egwene be somewhere on the Eldar? He was sure she had been in Cairhien when he left Maerone. Unless she had worked out Rand’s trick with the gateways. In which case she could jump back any time she wished. Or jump to Caemlyn, and make a gateway for him and the Band at the same time. “Don’t worry about Egwene, either. I’ll drag her out of whatever trouble she’s in, no matter how muley she behaves.” It would not be the first time he had pulled her chestnuts off the hearth before they burned. Very likely he would get no thanks for it this time either. Bode was going to be Aes Sedai? Blood and bloody ashes!
“Good,” Rand said. “Good.” But he was staring intently at the map. He jerked his eyes away, and for an instant Mat thought he intended to say something to Aviendha. Instead, he turned away from her roughly. “Thom Merrilin should be with Elayne.” Rand produced a letter from his pocket, folded and sealed. “See that he gets this.” Shoving the letter into Mat’s hands, he hurriedly left the tent.
Aviendha took a step after him, half-raising a hand, lips parted to speak. Just as suddenly her mouth snapped shut, and she buried her hands in her skirts and squeezed her eyes shut. So the wind came that way, did it? And she wants to talk to Elayne. How d
id Rand ever get himself in this pickle? Rand was always the one who knew how to handle women, Rand and Perrin.
Still, it was no concern of his. He turned the letter over in his hands. Thom’s name was written in a feminine hand; the seal was one he did not recognize, a spreading tree topped by a crown. What noblewoman would be writing to a leathery old man like Thom? Not his concern either. Tossing the letter on the table, he picked up his pipe and pouch. “Olver,” he said, stuffing the bowl with tabac, “ask Talmanes, Nalesean and Daerid to come to me.”
There was a squeak just outside the door flap, then, “Yes, Mat,” and the sound of scurrying feet.
Aviendha looked at him, folding her arms with a firm expression.
He forestalled her. “So long as you travel with the Band, you are under my command. I want no trouble, and I expect you to see there isn’t any.” Should she start anything, he would deliver her to Elayne tied to a packsaddle, if it took ten men to put her there.
“I know how to follow, battle leader.” She punctuated that with a sharp sniff. “But you should know that not all women are wetlander soft. If you try putting a woman on a horse when she does not want to go, she may put a knife in your ribs.”
Mat nearly dropped the pipe. He knew Aes Sedai could not read minds — if they could, his hide would have been hanging on a wall in the White Tower long since — but maybe Aiel Wise Ones . . . Of course not. It’s just one of those tricks women pull. He could figure out how she did it if he put his mind to it. He just did not care to put his mind to it.
Clearing his throat, he stuck the unlit pipe between his teeth and bent to study the map. The Band could probably cover the distance from the clearing to Salidar in a day if he pushed, even in that wooded terrain, but he intended to take two, or even three. Give the Aes Sedai plenty of warning; he did not want them any more frightened than they already were. A frightened Aes Sedai was almost a contradiction. Even wearing the medallion he was not eager to learn what a frightened Aes Sedai might do.
He felt Aviendha’s eyes on the back of his neck, heard a rasping sound. Sitting cross-legged against the tent wall, she was drawing her belt knife along a honing stone and watching him.
When Nalesean entered with Daerid and Talmanes, he greeted them with, “We are going to tickle some Aes Sedai under the chin, rescue a mule, and put a snip-nosed girl on the Lion Throne. Oh, yes. That’s Aviendha. Don’t look at her crosswise, or she’ll try to cut your throat and probably slit her own by mistake.” The woman laughed as if he had made the funniest joke in the world. She did not stop sharpening her knife, though.
For a moment Egwene could not understand why the pain had stopped increasing. Then she pushed herself up from the carpets of her tent and stood, sobbing so hard she quivered. She wanted very much to blow her nose. She did not know how long she had been crying that hard; she only knew she felt on fire from the top of her hips to the backs of her knees. Standing still was a problem she barely mastered. The shift she had thought of as scant protection had been discarded some time back. Tears rolled down her face, and she stood there and bawled.
Sorilea and Amys and Bair regarded her soberly, and they were not the only ones, though most of the rest were sitting about on cushions or stretched out, talking and enjoying tea served by a slender gai’shain. A woman, thank the Light. They were all women, Wise Ones and apprentices, women Egwene had told she was Aes Sedai. She was grateful that just letting them think she was did not count; she could not have survived that! It was the telling, the spoken lie, but there had been surprises. Cosain, a lean yellow-haired Spine Ridge Miagoma, had said gruffly that Egwene had no toh toward her but she would stay for the tea, and so had Estair. Aeron, on the other hand, seemed to want to cut her in two, and Surandha . . .
Trying to blink away the haze of tears, Egwene glanced toward Surandha. She was sitting with three Wise Ones, chatting and occasionally looking in Egwene’s direction. Surandha had been absolutely merciless. Not that any of them had gone easy. The belt Egwene had found in one of her chests was thin and supple, but twice as wide as her hand, and these women all had strong arms. A half-dozen or so strokes from each added up.
Egwene had never felt so ashamed in her life. Not that she was naked and red-faced and weeping like a baby. Well, the weeping was part. Not even that they had all watched her strapped, when not taking their own turns. What shamed her was that she had taken it so badly. An Aiel child would have been more stoic. Well, a child would never have had to face it, but the principle was the simple truth.
“Is it over?” Was that thick, unsteady voice really hers? How these women would laugh if they knew how carefully she had gathered her courage.
“Only you know the worth of your honor,” Amys said flatly. She held the belt dangling at her side, using the wide buckle as a handle. The murmur of conversation had ceased.
Egwene drew a long, shaking breath through her sobs. All she had to do was say it was done, and it was. She could have said enough after one blow from each woman. She could . . .
Wincing, she knelt and stretched herself out on the carpets. Her hands went beneath Bair’s skirts to grasp the woman’s bony ankles through her soft boots. This time she would hold on to her courage. This time she would not cry out. This time she would not kick, or thrash about, or . . . The belt had not hit her yet. Raising her head, she blinked her eyes clear to glare at them. “What are you waiting for?” Her voice still shook, but there was more than a note of anger too. Making her wait on top of everything else? “I have a journey to make tonight, in case you’ve forgotten. Get on with it.”
Amys tossed the belt down beside Egwene’s head. “This woman has no toh toward me.”
“This woman has no toh toward me.” That was Bair’s thin voice.
“This woman has no toh toward me,” Sorilea said forcefully. Bending, she smoothed damp hair from Egwene’s face. “I knew you were Aiel in your heart. Do not be overproud now, girl. You have met your toh. Get up before we think you are boasting.”
Then they were helping her to her feet, hugging her and wiping away her tears, holding a handkerchief for her to finally blow her nose. The other women gathered around, each announcing that this woman had no toh toward her before adding her own hugs and smiles. It was the smiles that were the biggest shock; Surandha beamed at her as brightly as ever. But of course. Toh did not exist once it was met; whatever earned it might as well never have happened. A bit of Egwene that was not wrapped up in ji’e’toh thought that maybe what she had said at the end helped, too, as well as getting back down in the first place. Perhaps she had not faced it with the indifference of an Aiel in the beginning, but at the end, Sorilea was right. She had been Aiel in her heart. She thought a part of her heart always would be Aiel.